Once she’d handed over the household reins, Cassandra shut herself inside Grace Mansion and stopped receiving visitors altogether. Only her own people were let through the door.
Even her meals came from the small kitchen inside her own quarters now, prepared fresh each day by Lily and Holly, who bought the ingredients themselves rather than pulling from the main estate’s stores.
The moment Cassandra called her staff back to her side, the rest of Valor Estate began to fall apart at the seams. Amelia found herself scrambling to promote whoever showed a hint of competence, trying to patch together something resembling the old routines with far too few hands to do it. With the wedding bearing down on them, the timing couldn’t have been worse. Every corner of the estate felt the gap Cassandra’s people left behind.
When Amelia brought the situation to Rebecca, the older woman pressed her fingers hard against her temples.
"I never imagined she could be this inconsiderate. I must have been a fool, treating her so gently all this time. I never even asked her to follow the same rules everyone else does."
Amelia held her tongue on that one. She herself had come into this family under strict rules from the very first day, no exceptions made for her at all. But Cassandra’s situation had never been the same as hers. Cassandra had arrived with a dowry large enough to prop up half the household, had run the estate herself for a full year, and had personally overseen Rebecca’s care through all of it. None of that seemed fair to bring up now, not to her mother in law’s face.
Instead, she asked carefully, "Mother, we’re already stretched thin as it is. Where would the coin for new servants even come from?"
As angry as she was, Rebecca still hadn’t given up hope of squeezing a little more out of Cassandra first. She thought it over for a moment. "Send someone from the second branch to speak with her. They’ve always gotten along well enough."
"I already asked Aunt Charlotte. She said she couldn’t bring herself to do it, and besides, she’s still buried in figuring out the betrothal gifts."
"Has she found anything?"
"She says the only option left is selling off the remaining shops."
Rebecca’s frown deepened. They’d already sold off pieces of the estate over the past several years just to stay afloat, and what remained now could be counted on two hands.
She sat with it a while longer before finally nodding to herself. "Then sell them. We’ll buy everything back eventually, once Adrian and Aurora bring in more merit."
The rewards that came from battlefield achievement were substantial, and everyone knew it. The Sinclair family had built an entire fortune that way once, and Adrian and Aurora were still young, already carrying real victories behind their names. There was no reason to think the Alpha wouldn’t keep favoring them for years to come. Rebecca understood the shape of things well enough, woman or not. With Cassandra’s father and brothers gone, there weren’t many young commanders left standing in this generation. As for the Hell Wolf, he’d been fighting on the Southern Frontier for two years now with no word of returning any time soon. That left the field wide open, and Adrian and Aurora seemed poised to walk right into it.
"I’ll arrange to have the shops sold," Amelia said, and left before her mother in law could add anything further.
Word of the sale reached Cassandra through Holly before the day was even over.
She was seated at her desk when it came, brush in hand, halfway through a line of careful calligraphy. She looked up only long enough to say, "Well, that’s really the only choice they have left, isn’t it."
"When the household had nothing before, they had no trouble asking you to cover it with your own dowry." Holly’s voice carried a sharp edge. "Why didn’t selling the shops occur to them then?"
"It isn’t the same thing to them." Cassandra allowed herself a small, knowing smile. "They’re counting on Aurora joining the family and pairing up with Adrian to bring in even more merit. In their minds, once that happens, nothing will be out of reach for this household ever again."
Lulu, crouched by the little stove fanning the coals, snorted without looking up. "Back then you gave your dowry hoping the Alpha would reward him well enough to make up for it eventually. And here we are. He used that same reward to marry someone else instead."
Cassandra set her brush down, suddenly too tired to keep writing. "I was a fool to think it would work out any differently. I just want the decree for our separation to arrive already, so we can walk out of here and never have to hear another word about their business again."
But the days slipped by, one after another, three of them, then four, and still nothing came.
What did come instead was news that Rebecca had fallen ill again, chest pains this time, with no Sebastian and no pills to soften the worst of it.
Cassandra let out a slow breath, a flicker of something close to pity crossing her face despite everything. "If it means we part on decent terms, I could ask Sebastian to look after her one last time. But I won’t be the one paying for it. If they want his help badly enough, they can find the money themselves."